Cooking, learning and teaching about the real meal

Teaching Food

For many years I have been teaching cooking. However, this does not really describe what I have been teaching. Really, I teach people about incorporating traditional, culturally, family-oriented and health-promoting skills into their lives in a way that sustains them and their community physically, spiritually and environmentally. I teach people about how food is a connection to their communities and to the land, and try to convey the message that knowing how food is raised, distributed and prepared matters as much as how good it tastes. I promote the political part of cooking, and most importantly, the joyful part of cooking- the process of procuring, preparing and providing beautiful, fresh, clean and whole food for the people you love

A lot has changed in our food system since I began trying to pass these messages along. Awareness has grown significantly around the issues of food access, equity, literacy and sustainability and the connection they each have to our health. I am proud to have been a small part of the growth of this awareness, it has certainly been a tasty process, and I am even more excited to see that these concerns are now beginning to receive the validity and attention that they deserve from some of our more respected and powerful institutions, like our universities! The New York Times had a great article the other day highlighting the development of these programs:

This is what I am talking (and teaching) about. Programs are being developed in many places because we now know that, while important, nutrition knowledge, or food science alone are not enough to promote and sustain a healthy food system. And without a healthy food system, what difference does it make if you know what the food guide pyramid says??

I am thrilled to be joining this movement and embarking on an exciting new project with the Healthy Foods, Healthy Lives institute at the University of Minnesota, where I will be the chef/instructor for an undergraduate cooking class: A food systems approach to cooking. Please spread the word. This will be a fascinating, practical and fun class, and will help to move the University toward creating and building sustainability and health through real life skills.